Elements of Debating eBook

7. Point out the weakness in the following propositions
(consider propositions always with your class as the
audience): (1) “Physics, Chemistry, and
Algebra Are Hard Studies.” (2) “Only Useful
Studies Should Be Taught in This School.” (3)
“All Women Should Be Allowed to Vote and Should
Be Compelled by Law to Remove Their Hats in Church.”
(4) “Agricultural Conditions in Abyssinia Are
Superior to Those in Burma.”

8. Compare the dictionary definition of the following
terms with the meaning which the history of the question
has given them in actual usage:

(1) Domestic science.

(2) Aeroplane exhibitions.

(3) The international Olympic games.

(4) Township high schools.

(5) National conventions of political
parties.

LESSON IV

DETERMINING THE ISSUES

I. What the “issues” are.

II. How to determine the issues.

III. The value of correct issues.

When you have made perfectly clear to your hearers
what you wish them to believe, the next step is to
show them why they should believe it. The first
step in this process, as we saw at the beginning of
Lesson iii, is to see what points, if proved,
will make them believe it.

These points, as we call them, are better known as
“issues.” The issues are really questions,
the basic questions on which your side and the other
disagree. The negative would answer “No”
to these issues, the affirmative would say “Yes.”

The issues when stated in declarative sentences are
the fundamental reasons why the affirmative believes
its proposition should be believed.

A student might be arguing with himself whether he
would study law or medicine. He would say to
himself: “These are the issues: For
which am I the better adapted? Which requires
the more study? Which offers the better promise
of reward? In which can I do the more good?”

Should he argue with a friend in order to induce him
to give up law and to study medicine, he would use
similar issues. He would feel that if he could
settle these questions he could convince his friend.
Now, however, he would state them as declarative sentences
and say: “You are more adapted to the profession
of medicine; you can do more good in this field,”
etc. If the friend should open the question,
he would be in the position of a man on the negative
side of a debate. He would state the issues negatively
as his reasons. He would say: “I am
not so well adapted to the study of medicine; it offers
less promise of reward,” etc.